displace, or more often by both.

[Sidenote: Natural versus vicinal location.]

A people has, therefore, a twofold location, an immediate one, based
upon their actual territory, and a mediate or vicinal one, growing out
of its relations to the countries nearest them. The first is a question
of the land under their feet; the other, of the neighbors about them.
The first or natural location embodies the complex of local geographic
conditions which furnish the basis for their tribal or national
existence. This basis may be a peninsula, island, archipelago, an oasis,
an arid steppe, a mountain system, or a fertile lowland. The stronger
the vicinal location, the more dependent is the people upon the
neighboring states, but the more potent the influence which it can,
under certain circumstances, exert upon them. Witness Germany in
relation to Holland, France, Austria and Poland. The stronger the
natural location, on the other hand, the more independent is the people
and the more strongly marked is the national character. This is
exemplified in the people of mountain lands like Switzerland, Abyssinia
and Nepal; of peninsulas like Korea, Spain and Scandinavia; and of
islands like England and Japan. To-day we stand amazed at that strong
primordial brand of the Japanese character which nothing can blur or
erase.

[Sidenote: Naturally defined location.]

Clearly defined natural locations, in which barriers of mountains and
sea draw the boundaries and guarantee some degree of isolation, tend to
hold their people in a calm embrace, to guard them against outside
interference and infusion of foreign blood, and thus to make them